Gerd, I've read your post before responding and I clearly noticed your praise for our team, you can certainly give me that much of a benefit of a doubt. Thank you for all the kind words
I merely responded to the "it would be unfair to say the ref made a mistake" part of your post, because it seemed to me that entire prior discussion about that penalty and its softness was revolving exclusively around Vrsaljko vs Silva contact. And yes, taken out of the full context, that is a penalty, as soft as it may be. And nobody could blame the referee for giving it.
But nobody seems to notice that there were three players actively involved in the action, all three of them almost in full sprint:
https://streamable.com/eq4h
Aduriz hits Vrsaljko on the shoulder, Vrsaljko looses balance and consequently trips Silva. That should have been called as a counter-foul on Vrsaljko in the first place. Which means no penalty at all. IMO, ref should have seen that and that is a ref's mistake.
Normally I wouldn't harp about that, but it's kinda getting annoying not getting awarded a lot harder penalties for us when it really matters (against the very same Spain back in EURO 2012 group stage, for example) and have all those softies constantly awarded against us (like yesterday or e.g. against Brazil in the opening match of 2014 WC). Luckily, we dodged the bullet this time.
3rd place goes through then Turkey doesn`t because Italy lost.
